Dead Mount Death Play

Episode 12

Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. Ever since our heroes returned from the real Polka's home, the story has been building up to a clash between all of the borderline supernatural criminals, Polka, and the police. Unfortunately, what we get in this episode is one giant tease.

Oh sure, it starts out promising enough with Lemmings suddenly jumping into the fight between Phantom Solitaire and Xiaoyu, but the problem becomes apparent rather quickly: not only do Phantom Solitaire and Xiaoyu not know why Lemmings is involving himself in the fight, but we also don't either. This means there's a level of uncertainty but very little real tension in the scene. And things get even worse tonally as Lemmings is so impossibly strong that it's nowhere close to an actual fight—neither Phantom Solitaire nor Xiaoyu's attacks do anything more than slow Lemmings down. It is pretty clear that if Lemmings wanted Phantom Solitaire or Xiaoyu dead, they would be, full stop.

Then comes what should be the big moment, with Polka unleashing his true power. We get all this build-up about Polka's empathy being both his greatest strength and greatest weakness—that he's likely to go berserk and unleash his full powers when his home and friends are threatened. Yet, not only does he seem rather in control throughout this episode, but his big show of otherworldly magic is largely ineffectual as well. He is unable to restrain Lemmings or catch Phantom Solitaire. The only thing Polka manages to accomplish is "saving" Xiaoyu—even though he was never in danger from Lemmings or Phantom Solitaire from the start.

But what about the police and the Fire-breathing Bug? Their confrontation goes nowhere as well. When the police accost the bug in the form of a teenage girl, she simply makes up a plausible story to tell the cops, while another body steps in to corroborate the story. With that, the confrontation is over, and the Fire-breathing Bug walks away.

Frankly, this is a real letdown of an episode—especially as the finale for this part of the story. There were no big character moments, and nothing that occurs serves to upset the status quo in any way. Sure, Polka's manages to get his hands on one of the Fire-breathing Bug's bodies. But as we saw with the assassination of the fake Fire-breathing Bug, those under its control have no memories of what happened when they were being controlled. And while the world now has footage of giant magic hands coming out of a building, the fact that Phantom Solitaire is in the same frame means the general public will see it as nothing but a magic trick.

In the end, while this episode doesn't "ruin" the series, it does leave things on a sour note. Hopefully, when Dead Mount Death Play returns this fall, things will pick up in a more meaningful way.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• This episode was so unimportant that Misaki and Sayo slept through it.

• This episode implies that the secret society connected to Polka's world is now going to be aiming for him but what that will actually entail for our hero is left completely unexplained.

• I'm a bit confused about the scene with Easlies and Romelka. Is this supposed to be happening concurrently with the events of the show or is this a flashback to something that happened long ago? I was under the impression that the empire had been gone for a lot longer than 100 years.

• Thanks for joining me for these reviews. I enjoyed this anime quite a bit (even with the lackluster ending). Hopefully, I'll see you all again this fall for Part 2.

Dead Mount Death Play is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.